Blockchain-Enabled Secure Data Sharing in IoT Networks

Abstract

The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has introduced complex challenges around secure, trustworthy, and efficient data sharing. Centralized approaches are prone to single points of failure, unauthorized access, and scalability limitations. Blockchain technology offers a promising decentralized framework to mitigate these issues through immutability, cryptographic verification, and smart contract automation. In this paper, we examine blockchain-enabled schemes designed to ensure secure data sharing among IoT devices, focusing solely on research prior to 2022. Key approaches include proxy re-encryption with smart contracts, enabling dynamic and fine-grained access control without centralized intermediaries (Manzoor et al., 2018) arXiv. Other works propose blockchain-integrated access control systems that combine behavioral monitoring with smart contract–mediated data exchange between IoT peers MDPI. The literature review delves into blockchain's foundational advantages, such as tamper-proof distributed ledgers, identity management, transparency, and auditability—all vital for trusted IoT ecosystems MDPI. However, the integration of blockchain into IoT raises challenges in scalability, latency, consensus overhead, and energy constraints. Our proposed research methodology synthesizes comparative analysis of existing methods, architectural modeling of blockchain-IoT frameworks, and a systematic evaluation of their performance and security implications. We explore trade-offs such as enhanced data integrity and trust versus increased computational and communication overhead. Advantages of blockchain-enabled sharing include decentralized trust, immutable logging, cryptographic identity, and autonomous data policy enforcement. Disadvantages involve increased latency, potential scalability bottlenecks, resource constraints on IoT devices, and complexity in key and consensus management. We conclude that blockchain offers robust mechanisms for secure IoT data sharing. Yet, success in real-world deployment depends on carefully balancing security benefits against resource limitations and performance trade-offs. Future directions include lightweight consensus for resource-constrained devices, off-chain storage integration (e.g., IPFS), and hybrid architectures combining blockchain with traditional access control systems.